


and turned my life around for good

by stellarfluid



Category: The Prom - Sklar/Beguelin/Martin
Genre: F/F, Time to Dance! The Prom Fanzine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2019-09-18
Packaged: 2020-10-20 21:07:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20681936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellarfluid/pseuds/stellarfluid
Summary: First things first. Middle school SUCKED.Emma was excited for it at the time, but worried she would have trouble making and keeping friends.That is, until she met her favorite person in the world.





	and turned my life around for good

**Author's Note:**

> hi everyone! this is my piece for the prom fanzine that came out this month. im very honored that i got to participate, and i hope u all like it!

First things first. Middle school  _ sucked. _

Well, okay. Now looking back, Emma thinks it sucked. But back then, she guesses, she really didn't think it was all that bad. She guesses she must have convinced herself it wasn't that bad.

Her 7th grade school year seemed to have a pretty good start. She had to admit, she was pretty dang excited to be Officially a Middle Schooler. After all, being in middle school meant you were close to being in high school, which meant you were closer to being an adult and being able to get a car and go to fun parties and stuff!

…As if she had anywhere she would want to go with a car, or like she thought she would actually have  _ fun _ at crazy parties. But, you know. Maybe it would end up being better in practice than it did in theory; especially since everyone else seemed into those things. If they liked them, she would too, right?

Would she even be invited to parties? She didn't know.

Emma had friends. Of course she had friends --- everyone had friends! --- but… it was complicated. Or, maybe it wasn't, she didn't know. They sat together at lunch and they went to each other's houses and everything, but something always felt a little… off. Like there was something different about them. Something they had and Emma didn't, or the other way around, she didn't know. But they got along, and they were the only friends she had, so she stuck with them. This was probably what everyone felt like with their friends, anyway, what with all that puberty and other middle schooler things going on. She hoped that things would resolve themselves. She was  _ pretty sure _ they would.

Emma walked into her new English class and took a look at the SmartBoard. The teacher had the seating chart up already, and it took her a minute to find herself on the screen. Once she found her spot, she looked at who she was sitting next to, and…

Oh. She was sitting to someone she had literally never even heard of.

Okay, that was a lie. She had heard of this girl. Her school was far too --- she had heard  _ everyone's  _ name at some point. She had just never  _ seen _ her before. So, that was a little scary.

Emma made her way to her seat. The girl sitting next to her was already there, chatting away with the person who was sitting to her other side. Seemed like she was popular! Emma knew that meant that she wouldn't talk to her much. She probably wouldn't even notice that Emma was there.

However, to Emma's utter  _ shock _ , the girl turned to talk to her as soon as she sat down.

"I don't think I know you," she said.

"Uh," Emma replied. "Me neither?"

"I'm Alyssa." the girl smiled. 

"Oh," Emma said. "Uh. I'm Emma. It's, uh, nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you, too!" 

Emma opened her mouth to say something else --- she wasn't quite sure what --- but then someone else came and began talking to Alyssa instead, so she shut it. She didn't have the courage to say anything for the rest of the class.

* * *

Shelby had a sleepover for her birthday, and, surprisingly, she invited Emma.  


Well, maybe it wasn't  _ that  _ surprising. Maybe it was more surprising that Emma decided to go. But, here she was, at the sleepover, sitting with a group of girls she barely talked to as they talked to each other (and not really her) about things she didn't really care about

And she was thinking about Alyssa.

She had been thinking about Alyssa a lot recently. She wasn't sure why. Maybe it was because she thought it was weird that Alyssa talked to her. Or that she actually felt like Alyssa  _ listened  _ to her, like she actually cared about what she had to say, like she was  _ interested  _ in what Emma had to say.

That was weird. Emma wasn't interesting. Emma was the one who was supposed to listen, not be listened to.

Now she was making herself sad. She tried to listen to what Shelby and her friends were talking about. As if it were something Emma could relate too. 

She just always felt on the outside, you know? Like she never had a place in their conversations. Like if she were to disappear, they wouldn't even notice. That night, after they all climbed into their sleeping bags and blankets, Emma stared at the ceiling, knowing that there was something about her that was  _ different.  _ She and her friends were  _ different,  _ and she needed to figure out why.

* * *

Alyssa continued to talk to Emma during school, and Emma just  _ didn't know why. _ She couldn't think of the last time anyone had seemed so interested in talking to her.    


She  _ loved _ it, though. She loved talking to Alyssa. It was the highlight of her day --- the reason she still wanted to go to school in the first place.

She had begun to realize that maybe it  _ wasn't  _ normal that she felt so out of place with her friends, because she didn't feel that way with Alyssa at all. Alyssa made her feel interesting and worthwhile… something she wasn't used to.

At the same time, though, this all scared her. She liked Alyssa a  _ lot.  _ And she was beginning to worry about what that meant. 

Emma had heard her mom saying bad things about girls who liked other girls. She knew that her mom hated people like that. Emma didn't understand the problem with it, but being a person like that herself was a scary concept. What would she tell her mom?

She tried to ignore it. She and Alyssa were friends! It was normal to love her friends.

"We should hang out sometime!" Alyssa said one day. "Why haven't we hung out yet?"

"Uh, I dunno," Emma replied.

"You should come spend the night at my house," Alyssa said. "We could watch a movie or something."

The concept made Emma very excited. 

She knew why. She hoped it was okay.

* * *

"Hey, Emma?" Alyssa asked in the middle of the night.   


"Yeah?"

"Are you awake?"

"Nope."

"Wanna hear what I'm thinking about?"

Emma rolled onto her side to look at Alyssa. "What?"

They had been having sleepovers for a while now, and Emma definitely knew she had a crush. Despite that, these sleepovers were  _ infinitely  _ better than the ones she used to have with Shelby. She actually felt like she was wanted when she was with Alyssa. Like they were actually friends. Emma knew that they could probably never  _ date _ , but…

"I really like you," Alyssa said. "Is that weird?"

"I--- what?"

"I really like you. You're, like, super cool."

Emma snorted. "No I'm not."

"I don't think you get it," Alyssa said, and sat up. Emma noticed how serious she looked. "I, like,  _ really  _ like you. Do you know how boring my life was before I met you?"

"Really?"

"Yeah, and like, you're the only person I don't feel super weird around."

_ "Really?" _

"Yeah." Alyssa pulled her legs to her chest. "I feel like I'm different from all my other friends, you know, like I'm not one of them? They don't talk about anything interesting! It's lame, and I feel weird! I don't feel that way with you."

"Oh," Emma said. "So. You… have a crush on me?"

Alyssa blinked. "Oh," she said. "I guess I do."

"Well," Emma said, and she laughed. "That's good."

Middle school sucked. But at least she met Alyssa.

  


Maybe it didn't suck so bad.

  



End file.
